Google recently announced in a blog post on its India blog that that it is branding new devices that will be identified as “certified Android devices”. Android has started back in 2008 as an open source platform with one device, one manufacturer, and one carrier. The platform that grew tremendously since its humble beginning has now over 2 billion active devices running on it all around the globe with mainly the help of its diversity of choices.
What is so special about the new certified devices, whether they are smartphones or tablets, is that they basically meet specific requirements to make them qualified for a Google new certificate alongside Google’s Play Protect feature that already play the role of guards to Android phones against harmful apps.
Play Protect, announced at Google I/O 2017, uses machine learning to scan apps for different threats and keep them off the device or remove them if they already exist on the device in question, providing basic protection from malware, privacy penetration and more. Play Protect was originally designed to help users be more aware of what’s going on with their phones and when their phones are being scanned, it can also help users who lost their phones locate them with “find my phone” feature that has the ability to lock down, wipe, or call devices on top of locating them.
The new certification issued by Google to its Android devices is meant to help the company make sure its users are having more stable and secure experience with their products, be it devices or apps. Google works with manufacturers from all around the world to run test of compatibility that would ensure these new devices to be adhesive to the Android security model. Tests also makes Google sure of the authenticity of its pre-installed apps on these devices, and that the apps installed from Play Store would work on the device as they were intended to. Manufacturers too will be able to offer better experiences to their users by getting their devices certified.
Although this certification change had no visible effect or apparent change on the device, Google went ahead and announced it on its blog in order to help users differentiate between authentic devices and the ones that copies Android.
In the same blog post that had the announcement for the new certification, Google also announced that the company will start printing the Play Protect logo in the retail packages of its Android tablets and smartphones.